By Mitch Paine, CFM
From September 2014 Floodplain Management Today
Communities get phone calls from their residents, business owners, lenders, and realtors asking for basic information about floodplain management and often these individuals are interested to dive deeper into the topic to learn more. There are some important resources that all communities, not just those in CRS, can have on their websites or in their libraries.
CRS Activity 350 credits materials you put on your website and in your library. Your community website is a useful source of information that many residents, businesses, lenders, and realtors rely on. Many communities disseminate information about flood risk and floodplain management requirements via their websites. The City of Papillion has a very good website that you can view here: http://www.papillion.org/planning_floodplain_information.cfm.
CRS recommends and credits the following items on your website:
- Coverage of the topics covered by outreach projects such as:
- Know your local flood hazard
- Insure your property
- Protect people from flood hazards
- Protect property from flood hazards
- Build responsibly
- Protect natural floodplain functions
- Information on flood warning systems, flood safety, and evacuation routes
- Streamgage information - you can find out more about streamgages here: water.weather.gov/ahps
- Posting elevation certificates - so people can see elevation information on properties that have certificates on file
Communities should consider putting the following useful FEMA publications in their libraries. 9 points are currently available in CRS:
- Above the Flood, Elevating Your Floodprone Home: helps homeowners understand the importance of elevating homes above the floodplain, uses examples from Hurricane Andrew in Miami-Dade County
Answers to Questions About the National Flood Insurance Program: set of frequently asked questions about the NFIP- Coastal Construction Manual: while this sounds like it doesn’t apply to Nebraska, many construction methods that are used on the coast could be useful examples for homebuilders here and should be included
- Elevated Residential Structures: more technical publication designed for builders and architects to help them understand unique challenges to constructing elevated homes
- Protecting Manufactured Homes from Floods and Other Hazards: this is a technical publication that helps people installing manufactured homes understand how to keep them safe from flooding and it includes technical specs for a number of different installation situations
- Mitigation of Flood and Erosion Damage to Residential Buildings in Coastal Areas: this document can provide useful references to those in Nebraska looking at specific problems with erosion along our streams
- Protecting Building Utilities from Flood Damage: technical document designed for builders, code officials, and others involved in designing utility systems for buildings
- Protecting Floodplain Resources: document for communities to understand the natural and beneficial functions of floodplains
- Reducing Damage from Localized Flooding: a guide to understanding what can be done in communities to deal with flooding that affects only a handful of properties and might not be on a Flood Insurance Rate Map
There are additional points available for locally-pertinent documents put in libraries. NDNR suggests communities consider putting the following into their libraries:
- FEMA publication Homeowners Guide to Retrofitting: helps homeowners understand the various mitigation techniques that can be done to their individual property
- Local hazard mitigation plan
- Local floodplain ordinance
- State floodplain management statutes
- State minimum standards for floodplain management
- Local Flood Insurance Study (available on msc.fema.gov)
- US Army Corps of Engineers studies (if applicable)
- Other locally-produced documents that discuss flood risk or drainage problems
For any of these publications, your community must enter them into the card catalog at your library and provide a sample entry for CRS documentation.
Both having a well-stocked library of floodplain resources and having a useful website adds to the information sources available for your community members to research ways to protect their property from flooding. CRS gives up to 105 points for all of these activities.
